What I would like to see in a future version of Raspberry Pi...

[navysealltblue]

The Raspberry Pi is an amazing concept, and I hope it revolutionizes the not just world of education (as the foundation's goal states), but the entire world, with its extremely low cost and miniscule form factor. However, the only downside to a school filled with Raspberry Pi's is that students would still need to hook into keyboards, mice, and/or monitors.
For that reason, I'd like to see a future version include the following technologies:

Projector like the DLP Pico projector,
Screen for the projector (to maintain its small profile, the Raspberry Pi could include two telescoping bars that extend off of the Pi's case and hold a projector screen so that the Pi can be placed down on the table top, creating a super compact, yet large, portable screen.)
Projection keyboard/mouse similar to the Celluon Magic Cube and Celluon evoMouse.
Battery (the reasoning for this should be obvious)
Sadly, most of the previously mentioned technologies are patented and Raspberry Pi would have to license them (of course raising the price of the device).

But I'd really love to see these incorporated either officially (preferably) or unofficially as they transform the Raspberry Pi from a powerful, small, portable computer (that requires external components to be useful) to a powerful, small, portable computer, capable of functioning anywhere, any time, (as long as a flat surface is available (like a tabletop).

Any thoughts?

[liz]

Things is, stuff like that doesn't have to be integral. The owner of the device can buy a projector and other peripherals and plug them in. And most important to us is the fact that we are a small, powerful, cheap computer. The price means flexibility, and flexibility is the most valuable commodity we can offer.

[navysealltblue]

Oh I completely agree with you when you say that the goal of the project is to have a cheap device. And if the ideas that I proposed wouldn't be so bloody expensive, I think that they would greatly, and positively affect the appeal of the device (of course not just for schools but everyone).

I figured I'd float the ideas out there despite the cost, only because while the Raspberry Pi will be super cheap, it still requires that school's maintain a pretty sizable level of infrastructure (and any costs to them, albeit lesser ones, would still impact decision to buy Pi's for the school if they are lacking in the infrastructure to begin with.)

Regardless of whether in the future (near or far), these ideas are implemented (through you or device owners themselves), I eagerly await to see the future of the product, and hopefully it's success.

[tntexplosivesltd]

Wait, are you serious? Like, really?

[Jessie]

These threads are very common, not trying to step on any toes here but locking this due to redundancy.
http://www.raspberrypi.org/for.....#038;t=246

[dlocky]

There have seen a number of quotes of The Raspberry PI seeking to be the modern equivalent to the BBC Micro in education.  That is to get all the youth and enthusiasm coding again.  One element that the BBC Micro had was it ability to be expanded from the hardware up and a corner stone of that was the 1Mhz bus. I got mine to control various things through the 1Mhz Bus from an EPROM Burner through to controlling the environment in a Green House. I even got a BBC Micro to replace punched paper tape devices on some very old computers that were still in use.

What I truly would like to see on the PI is what the BBC Micro could not do and is very difficult to do with todays desktop computers.  That is to connect via the internet to provide real time control and telemetry for household devices.  With that and the adoption of a GUI development environment such as Lazarus we might just get computers back into controlling our world.

[Benedict White]

dlocky said:


What I truly would like to see on the PI is what the BBC Micro could not do and is very difficult to do with todays desktop computers.  That is to connect via the internet to provide real time control and telemetry for household devices.  With that and the adoption of a GUI development environment such as Lazarus we might just get computers back into controlling our world.


From what I have seen of the Raspberry Pi it could do that, from running a LAMP server to connecting via the GPIO to anything you want if you can build the interface circuits.

[wrcousert]

I want the following:

1. A Tegra 3 CPU (or whatever the current generation is by the time this gets built).

2. At least 1GB RAM - 2GB would be preferable.

3. At least 32GB storage.

4. The most recent version of Android (currently ICS).

5. A similar form factor to the Apple TV 2.

Android works well with mice and touch pads.

I don't expect it to sell for $25. I'd be willing to pay as much as $200.

[Benedict White]

wrcousert said:



Android works well with mice and touch pads.

I don't expect it to sell for $25. I'd be willing to pay as much as $200.


Why not just buy a tablet?

[wrcousert]

Benedict White said:

       Why not just buy a tablet?

A tablet would cost more with the included touch screen and battery. The Asus Transformer Prime is listed for $499. It would probably sell for less than half of that if you removed the touch screen and battery.

[Benedict White]

wrcousert said:


Benedict White said:

       Why not just buy a tablet?

A tablet would cost more with the included touch screen and battery. The Asus Transformer Prime is listed for $499. It would probably sell for less than half of that if you removed the touch screen and battery.


Er, a friend of mine just bought an Archos 101 for £120. ($186). He says as an Android device it rocks.

http://www.archos.com/products.....ml?lang=en

They even claim to dual boot to another version of Linux and don't care what you install.

There are loads of cheap tablets out there in your price bracket if that is what you want. As far as I know the Raspberry Pi is not in that space nor is it intended to be.

[wrcousert]

Benedict White said:


wrcousert said:


Benedict White said:

       Why not just buy a tablet?

A tablet would cost more with the included touch screen and battery. The Asus Transformer Prime is listed for $499. It would probably sell for less than half of that if you removed the touch screen and battery.


Er, a friend of mine just bought an Archos 101 for £120. ($186). He says as an Android device it rocks.

http://www.archos.com/products.....ml?lang=en

They even claim to dual boot to another version of Linux and don't care what you install.

There are loads of cheap tablets out there in your price bracket if that is what you want. As far as I know the Raspberry Pi is not in that space nor is it intended to be.

Only the Asus Transformer Prime has a Tegra 3 and it's selling for $499. I don't need a tablet for this purpose. It would be a waste of money. Why spend nearly $500 when i can get what I need for less than half that?

[Benedict White]

What do you need the Tegra 3 for?

[SRSullivan]

wrcousert said:


I want the following:

1. A Tegra 3 CPU (or whatever the current generation is by the time this gets built).

2. At least 1GB RAM - 2GB would be preferable.

3. At least 32GB storage.

4. The most recent version of Android (currently ICS).

5. A similar form factor to the Apple TV 2.

Android works well with mice and touch pads.

I don't expect it to sell for $25. I'd be willing to pay as much as $200.


What your looking for is already on the market for almost the price point you want.

http://trimslice.com/

[wrcousert]

SRSullivan said:


wrcousert said:


I want the following:

1. A Tegra 3 CPU (or whatever the current generation is by the time this gets built).

2. At least 1GB RAM - 2GB would be preferable.

3. At least 32GB storage.

4. The most recent version of Android (currently ICS).

5. A similar form factor to the Apple TV 2.

Android works well with mice and touch pads.

I don't expect it to sell for $25. I'd be willing to pay as much as $200.


What your looking for is already on the market for almost the price point you want.

http://trimslice.com/

It uses the Tegra 2 processor.

Why do I want a Tegra 3?

feature=relmfu

[Jessie]

SRSullivan said:


wrcousert said:


I want the following:

1. A Tegra 3 CPU (or whatever the current generation is by the time this gets built).

2. At least 1GB RAM - 2GB would be preferable.

3. At least 32GB storage.

4. The most recent version of Android (currently ICS).

5. A similar form factor to the Apple TV 2.

Android works well with mice and touch pads.

I don't expect it to sell for $25. I'd be willing to pay as much as $200.


What your looking for is already on the market for almost the price point you want.

http://trimslice.com/



Trimslice has a Tegra 2.  IMO nVidia didn't get competitive with their ARM offereings until they produced the Tegra 3.  The graphics performance was too low on the older Tegra devices.  If I were going to put down around $200 for an ARM computer I would just get a Pandaboard ES, it is about the best out there right now for the price IMO.

Looks like this thread got unlocked.  I will leave it so for now.

[rts_joe]

Firstly this project is amazing and I wish it had been around years ago and I am very excited by all the projects and possibilities this device presents.

Now that's out the way, one word: Arduino. Any sort of integration between the two projects would be phenomenal. However in particular having a level of control over lights and motors directly through built in I/O without the need for an Arduino board would be very useful.

In terms of the original target audience (schools) I could also see a use for this.

Also I've noticed that many of the suggestions have been in regards to perhaps more or less of one particular port, for instance I noticed one post requesting A VGA port and I myself would like to see an additional USB port. So my second wish is for a customisable level of connectivity, though I can see some potentially difficult economical and technical problems/impossibilities with that.

Finally, built in GPS, I am aware that even a basic GPS module would greatly increase the price of this device but I think it's already waaaaaaaaayyy affordable anyway.

Anyway, good luck with the project and I hope you can keep up with the demand.

[goos63]

More internal memory, this amount is not from this age.

Several click-on option boards with the same size that ad specific functionality like measurement inputs, a DigitalSoundProcessor, opto-coupled switching or a small lcd (would be nice if you could stack these boards to combine added functionality)

And most of all; standard wireless internet

On the soft site:

A standard programming suite with hands-on in many translations to get kids starting (I assume this is already in progress)

[Tomo2k]

goos63 said:

And most of all; standard wireless internet
Why?

I personally think that WiFi as standard would be a foolish idea, because it adds a lot of cost (chipset, board area, antenna, a lot more testing to meet CE later) for very little benefit.

It's much better for interested users to plug in a cheap USB WiFi adapter, which would run at the same speed anyway and has none of the drawbacks.

- The Ethernet link is a USB one anyway, so what difference does it make?

I think that a Model A + 3rd party USB WiFi adapter would cost the same as a Model B.

Perhaps the Foundation will look into reselling a suitable USB WiFi adapter in their shop once things have settled down.

[foo]

The tradeoff for this model seems to be slow(ish) CPU, fast GPU.  I'd like one the other way around for headless work.  And of course, more RAM and GBe wouldn't hurt.

[qvinlove]

The raspi would be great in a tablet. it would boot mobile Linux (when the Ubuntu people roll it out) have a USB port for a keyboard and a 8 inch screen. Already I see educators wanting iPads for schools, but they are freaking expensive and don"t have the programming potential of the raspberry pi.

[rallisf1]

Most of the feature requests (apart the extra ram and better proccessor) are useless. Rapsberry Pi is gonna be a bulk computer board based on PDA architecture. I'll frankly be impressed if it gets shipped with a power supply and an SD card with pre-loaded OS, just kidding off course it gets shipped with those but any IT geek is gonna use better than the ones shipped with.

Anyone can put this board in a small aluminium case along with a 7-Port USB Hub and then connect everything he/she wants on it (wifi/bluetooth/gps/card reader/usb to sata). I'm gonna intergrate my NEC usb to sata adapter drivers to a grub loader stored in the original SD and use through USB a 30GB SSD drive with ubuntu and android dual boot. When a stable windows 8 RTC comes out i'm gonna add it to triple boot (Windows 8 will support arm architecture), and that's it. Super mini-computer for half price of an atom-based ITX system.

Also for the folks nagging about the lack of VGA port, use this if you only have a VGA input screen: HDMI to VGA converter

[jamesh]

rallisf1 said:


Most of the feature requests (apart the extra ram and better proccessor) are useless. Rapsberry Pi is gonna be a bulk computer board based on PDA architecture. I'll frankly be impressed if it gets shipped with a power supply and an SD card with pre-loaded OS, just kidding off course it gets shipped with those but any IT geek is gonna use better than the ones shipped with.

Anyone can put this board in a small aluminium case along with a 7-Port USB Hub and then connect everything he/she wants on it (wifi/bluetooth/gps/card reader/usb to sata). I'm gonna intergrate my NEC usb to sata adapter drivers to a grub loader stored in the original SD and use through USB a 30GB SSD drive with ubuntu and android dual boot. When a stable windows 8 RTC comes out i'm gonna add it to triple boot (Windows 8 will support arm architecture), and that's it. Super mini-computer for half price of an atom-based ITX system.

Also for the folks nagging about the lack of VGA port, use this if you only have a VGA input screen: HDMI to VGA converter


That lead won't work. Search the forums for all the details on why not.

[jamesh]

Just out of interest, I believe the GPU in the Raspi is actually better than the one in the Tegra 3....The only advantage of the Tegra 3 is the Arm cores.

[ntebis]

It will be great if the audio will be in-out for a mic like the mobile phones. it will be more useful with a spliter than usb mic